’A constant on my camino was the powerful sensation of a message across time, a guiding hand reaching out to me from those who had passed this way before.’

A thousand-year-old pilgrimage route and food traditions stretching back de toda la vida – since forever. These are what Dee Nolan set out to experience on her pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela – through the rich farming lands of southern France and northern Spain, green Spain. The monks who came here in the Middle Ages to look after the first pilgrims planted grapevines from their homelands far away. Now food lovers come seeking the magnificent wines made using grapes grown in those same ancient vineyards, along with sublime cooking and fresh, luscious produce.

Dee’s own emotional journey along the Way of St James – el camino de Santiago – took her back to the very heart of things : why we should care about what we eat and how it is produced, why we need escape valves like the pilgrimage in our busy modern lives, and why she found herself, after a long career in publishing, back on her grandfather’s farm and connecting with the soil.

This joyful book tells the story of Dee’s camino, of the pilgrimage itself and of the food traditions that sustain us all. Following the route of those first pilgrims, Dee met wise cooks and farmers who are finding that the future lies in the past. And she realised why, in our secular age, we are so captivated by this medieval Christian pilgrimage.